The Fairytale Nerd is the next stop on the Maid of Secrets Blog Tour! Today, Jennifer McGowan, author of Maid of Secrets, shares with us five things we don’t know about Maid of Secrets.
Five Things you didn’t know about Maid of Secrets
First off, thank you very much for hosting me today at The Fairy Tale Nerd, Joanne! I’m delighted to be here. ☺
And your topic was a thought provoking one! I’ve had so much fun working on the Maids of Honor series, first Meg’s book and now Beatrice’s (Book 2, Maid of Deception is out next summer, 2014!) that it was fun to sit back and consider what Five Things readers most likely didn’t know about Maid of Secrets.
Thing One: I chose my spies from the ranks of the maids of honor for a very simple reason
There were two types of female attendants to Queen Elizabeth: ladies in waiting and maids of honor. What was the primary difference? Marital status.
The first group of attendants to the queen (the ladies) were older and usually married. The second group (the maids), even if they were among the nobility, were generally younger and unmarried. I knew I wanted a young, adventurous and unmarried crew for my group of spies, and so my special corps of Maids of Honor was born!
Thing Two: Maid of Secrets was not the original title for the book
When I first wrote what was to become “Maid of Secrets”, it was titled “Maids of Honor”. Which was a GREAT title, except that all five spy girls together were considered the Maids of Honor, and once the book sold, everyone realized that I needed a new title that was relevant specifically to Meg’s story. That sparked literally a dozen different titling options, including titles as brief as “Thief” and as long as “A Mask of Lies and Shadows”. Thankfully, we settled on “Maid of Secrets” for Meg’s story, which allowed us to move to “Maid of Deception” for Beatrice’s story. As the series continues, we’ll see what the other spies are “Maid of”!
Thing Three: Meg did not originally have powerful recall as a special ability
In the first version of the book, I was hung up on Meg having a slightly different skill, rather than the ability to remember anything she hears, word-for-word. What was that skill?
Hearing.
Yes, it’s true. I gave the poor girl bionic-level hearing. Looking back, I’m not sure why I was so focused on that particular sense, but once I decided that was a pretty lame skill, the story became so much more fun. However, my work was not finished… even very late in the editing process, I still found odd references to Meg seeming to be able to “hear through walls.” (headsmack)
Continue reading →
